Fitbit ChargeHR

Over the last year or so, I’ve been using the FitBit Flex wristband to keep track of my daily steps, sleep statistics and so on.  I’ve been generally impressed with its ease of use and so on, as well as the integration/communication with the FitBit App.

As it worked out, the only thing I wasn’t too impressed with was the strap itself – in that year-ish, I got through two straps, and had just ordered a replacement for the second. That’s not ideal, and is something of a design flaw. (I’ve let them know about it, so we’ll see what happens)

At the time I got it, I was a bit annoyed by a perceived lack of functionality within the Flex, so I was interested to see that they’ve released some more wearable things with more functionality – the Charge, ChargeHR and Surge (which is almost a smart-watch in its own right) – and I ended up getting a new ChargeHR.

Because I’m exercising more and so on, I was wanting a device to track heart-rate and so on as well, and the ChargeHR does that. I don’t need the full functionality of the Surge (plus I didn’t want to be taking myself up to that price point) but this one does pretty much what I want, particularly in combination with the phone.

The strap on this is a bit more obtrusive than that of the Flex – I can feel it as I’m typing this, for example – but all told I’m so far impressed with the device. And it has some of the extra things I wrote about a year back – and the Surge has built-in GPS as well, which was another.

It’s interesting seeing how these devices improve over time. It’d still be nice to see more innovation, but at least they’re doing more, and still maintaining a decent battery life and so on.

I’ve only had it a couple of days so far, but will probably write more about the ChargeHR in a couple of months’ time, as I’m more used to it.